HUGH LEARNS OLD GRIMES IS STILL DEAD
Fortune picks her favourites strangely. While the McClintocks were away
at the war Robert Dodson, incompetent and worthless, developed from a
pauper to a millionaire. His was one of the sudden shifts of luck to
which Virginia City was becoming used.
Most men in the camp had a trunkful of mining stock picked up here and
there, a lot of it feet in wildcat concerns hawked about in exchange for
meal tickets, boots, shirts, liquor, and other supplies. This was
scattered so promiscuously that one could acquire reams of it without
giving much in actual value for it. Dodson’s rise to affluence was a
camp joke. It was said that he sold two bags of bones and a pile of
kindling for a million dollars. What he actually did was to swap his
ramshackle wagon and starving team for fifty feet in the Never Say Die,
twenty-five feet in the Gambler’s Luck, twenty in the Mollie Macrae, and
fifteen in the Road to China. He was given a quart of whisky to boot.
The trade was made while Dodson was drunk, and all his saloon cronies
chuckled over the way he had been sold. For all of these were stock
jobbing enterprises and nothing more. None of them were doing any
developing at all.
A mine adjacent to the Never Say Die and the Gambler’s Luck struck it
rich. There was a sympathetic boom in mines of surrounding territory.
The Never Say Die sank a shaft and ran a crosscut. This cut into a vein
that appeared to be a bonanza. Half seas over again, Dodson sold out his
interest in both prospects at the height of the boom. Within a week it
was known that the crosscut had run into only a small pocket.
Luck pursued Dodson. It would not let him alone. He took a flyer in
Ophir stock, and the Ophir soared. He invested in Crown Point and the
Belcher. Both were big winners.
Presently a younger brother of the new magnate appeared on the scene to
manage his interests. Ralph Dodson was a big athletic fellow with glossy
black hair and small black moustache. The dark eyes were keen and cold.
They roved a good deal, but it was noticeable that they came to pause
whenever they fell on a good-looking woman. He had a
hail-fellow-well-met manner, but there was something hard and icy in him
that frustrated his jollity.
The younger brother had a powerful influence over Robert Dodson. The man
pulled himself up and stopped drinking. He was of nature parsimonious,
and he hung on to his fortune in spite of the parasites who fawned on
him. Ralph’s cool business judgment was a factor in the rapid increase
of it.
Scot McClintock returned to civil life to find that the wastrel and
ne’er-do-well was an important figure in the community. He had the
responsibilities that go with wealth, and these always entail a certain
amount of public recognition. The bullet head of Robert Dodson might be
seen among the notables at the International Hotel. His shifty yellow
eyes looked down from the platform on various important occasions.
Both Scot and his brother had saved money. They had, too, a long credit
at the banks and among private friends. They went into freighting on an
extensive scale. They bought teams, increasing gradually the size of
their business. Ore and wood contracts were their specialties.
Dan De Quille has said that the Comstock is the tomb of the forests of
the Sierras. This is literally true. Already enough timber had been
buried in the Lode to build a city several times as large as San
Francisco was. The square-set system of timbering, invented by Philip
Deidesheimer, made it possible to develop the mines to a great depth in
spite of the tendency of the ground to cave. But this necessitated
hauling timber from a distance. The nearer slopes of the range were
already denuded.
Upon this need the McClintocks built their business. It prospered year
by year, for both members of the firm were shrewd and energetic.
Vicky had remained at school in Carson when Scot moved to Virginia City.
When she reached the age of sixteen Scot sent her to a young lady’s
seminary at San Francisco where she could have better advantages. For a
year she remained in the city at the Golden Gate.
It chanced that Hugh had not seen Vicky since the day when she first set
out for school at Carson years ago. Upon the occasions of her visits to
Mollie’s house he had been out of town on business. Once he had called
at Miss Clapp’s to see her, but Miss Victoria happened to be up King’s
Cañon gathering wild flowers.
“What’s she look like now?” Hugh asked Scot when he heard the girl was
returning from San Francisco. “Must be a right sizable little girl now,
I reckon. Last time I was in Sacramento I sent her a nigger toll. Here’s
the letter she wrote me. I’d think they’d teach her to spell better.”
Scot read the note.
Dere Mister Santa Claws,
I got the doll. Thank you very much for it. I like dolls. I am
lerning speling, reading, riting, gography, numbers, grammar,
and deportment. Deportment is when you say thanks to a kind
gentelman for giveing you a doll. We had bluebery pie for
dinner. Do you like bluebery pie? I do. Wel I must close for
this time your greatful little friend Victoria Lowell.
The older brother wiped a smile from his face as he looked at Hugh. The
note was like the little vixen who had written it. She was having her
fun with Hugh, who seemed to have forgotten that in the course of four
years children of Vicky’s sex have a habit of shooting up into young
ladies. A black doll! Well, Hugh had brought it on himself. Scot did not
intend to spoil sport. He told a part of the truth.
“She’s a pretty good match for the black doll herself—the blackest
little thing you ever saw. Hair flies wild. A good deal of long arms and
legs about her. Some whirlwind when she gets started.”
“Always was that,” Hugh said. “I can imagine how she looks. Blueberry
pie painted on her face when she wrote that letter probably.” He shifted
the conversation to business. “Are you going down to Piodie or do you
want me to go?”
Piodie was the newest camp in Nevada. Discovery of ore had just been
made and a stampede for the new diggings was on. They were said to be
very rich in both gold and silver. If this proved true, the handling of
freight to the new camp would be profitable.
“You go, Hugh. I don’t want to leave Mollie just now.”
In the mining country camps have their little day and cease to be. They
wallow in prosperity and never dream of the time when the coyote will
howl in their lonesome streets. A camp which “comes back” is as rare as
a pugilist who recovers a lost championship. Aurora’s star had set. The
live citizens were flitting, and the big mines were pulling their pumps.
The name on every tongue was Piodie.
“All right,” agreed Hugh. “I been wantin’ to have a look at that camp.”
“Take your time. No hurry. Look the ground over carefully. The business
will run right along while you’re away.”
“Hope Mollie gets along fine,” Hugh said awkwardly.
The young man was now a responsible member of a business firm which
handled a large trade. The days when he had ridden pony express, even
the ones when he had left the army with a sergeant’s stripes on his
sleeve, belonged to his adventurous past. Young as he was, Hugh served
on civic committees and attended board of trade banquets. In his heart
sometimes he rebelled. He did not look forward with eagerness to the day
when he would be a leading citizen with an equatorial paunch. The blood
of youth still sang in him a saga of untravelled trails.
Perhaps that was why he chose to ride to Piodie instead of taking a seat
beside “Pony” King on the stage. It was a day of the gods as he rode up
the Geiger Grade from B Street. His lungs drank in the rare air like
wine. The sky was crystal clear except for a long-drawn wisp of cloud
above the summit of Mt. Davidson. Below him a cañon cleft the hills, and
beyond its winding gorge was a glimpse of soft-toned desert through
which ran a gleaming silver ribbon edged with the green of cottonwood
foliage. Far away, at the horizon edge, were white mountain barriers,
the Sierras to the right, the Humboldt and the Pine Nut ranges to the
east.
It was noon when he reached Reno, the new town which had just changed
its name from End-of-the-Track. The Central Pacific, built the previous
year, had brought Reno into existence. It was still a little village. If
any one had predicted then that the day was coming when both Carson and
Virginia would be displaced in importance by the little railroad station
Reno, he would have been judged a poor guesser.
Hugh jogged along at the steady road gait which is neither quite a trot
nor a walk. The miles fell behind him hour after hour. The sun sank into
the hills and left behind it a great splash of crimson glory. This faded
to a soft violet, which in turn deepened to a lake of purple as the
evening shadows lengthened.
The traveller camped in the sage. He scooped out a hole in the soft sand
and built in it a fire of greasewood and brush. This he kept replenished
till it was full of live coals. He knew it would last till morning
without fresh fuel. Supper finished, he rolled up in his blanket and
found for a pillow the softest spot in the saddle.
His brain buzzed with thoughts of the old riding days when life had been
an adventure and not a humdrum business. Into his memory there sang
itself a chantey of the trail. He found himself now murmuring the words
drowsily:
“Last night as I lay on the prairie,
And looked at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Would drift to that sweet by and by.
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on,
Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little dogies, roll on.”
The tune of it followed in a rough way that of “My Bonnie Lies Over the
Ocean.” Stanza after stanza Hugh sang it softly, and each time as he
came to the chorus his brain was a little less active, his eyes a little
heavier.
“Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, little—dogies—roll—on.”
He fell asleep with the words on his lips.
The gray of dawn was streaking the east when he awoke. After breakfast
he fell again into the jog-trot of travel. The sage hills slipped behind
him, and always there were others to replace the ones that had vanished.
The sun crept high and became a ball of fire in the sky. Dust in yellow
clouds, fine and penetrating, sifted over and into him. His eyes became
irritated with it and his throat caked.
It was late afternoon when he rode down through Piodie Cañon to the
flats where enterprising real estate agents were laying out suburbs of
the new camp. Hugh turned in at a feed corral and swung from the saddle
stiffly.
A familiar voice lifted itself in tuneless but cheerful song:
“He lived at peace with all mankind,
In friendship he was true;
His coat had pocket holes behind.
His pantaloons were blue.”
Hugh grinned. “The dawggoned old-timer. I ain’t seen him since I quit
ridin’,” he said aloud to himself.
“But poor old Grimes is now at rest,
Nor fears misfortune’s frown;
He had a double-breasted vest,
The stripes ran up and down,”
continued the singer from the stable.
McClintock tiptoed forward and looked in. A man of Falstaffian girth was
oiling a set of harness.
“Ain’t old man Grimes wore out them blue pants yet?” asked Hugh,
dropping into the free-and-easy speech of his youth.
The fat man whirled. “Hell’s hinges! If it ain’t Kid McClintock. Where
did you drap from?” He fell on the young man and pounded him with his
hamlike fists. “Say, I’ll bet Byers’ll be plumb tickled to see you.”
“Byers here, too?”
“Sure as you’re a foot high. That damn railroad done run us outa
business. So we got this feed corral here. Didn’t you see the sign: Pony
Express Corral, Budd & Byers, Props?”
“You’re sure some prop, Jim. Don’t you reckon you’re most a pillar? By
jiminy, you been takin’ on flesh since I saw you.”
“Hmp! Nothin’ of the kind,” snorted Budd indignantly. “Shows what you
know. I been losin’ flesh, if you want the straight goods. Pillar,
shucks! If you had enough education to outfit a Piute you’d sabe that
‘Props.’ is short for Proprietors. It means we own this here place.”
Hugh registered intelligence. “Oh, I get you. Why, dad gum it, I’m a
prop, my own se’f. Freighting and Contracting, McClintock & McClintock,
Props.”
“Yes, I done heard you been keepin’ two jumps ahead of the wolf. I
reckon that’s why you come to a good town at last.” Budd’s body shook
with mirth like an immense jelly. This was his idea of repartee as was
repartee.
“_Is_ it a good camp?” asked Hugh seriously. “That’s what I came to find
out.”
“Kid, it’s a sockdolager. Them hills is full of silver. All you got to
do is to drive a pick in and find the ore.”
“That’s all you’ve got to do anywhere in these United States,” agreed
McClintock drily. “Question is, will you find it?”
Budd began to sputter with excitement. In the West it always has been
the first article of a man’s faith to believe in his town. One might
have slandered the fat man’s relatives and hoped to escape alive, but
for Piodie he would have fought at the drop of a hat.
“Why—why—doggone yore hide, kid, this camp’s got Virginia skinned four
ways from Sunday. It’s the best ever. Ore from the grass roots.
Everywhere—all ’round. Millions o’ tons of it.” He waved a fat hand
expansively as he warmed to his theme. “This here town is built in the
heart of nature’s storehouse, the mint where her auriferous deposits
were planted when the Sierras was a hole in the ground. Son, you tie up
to Piodie an’ you’ll sure do yorese’f proud.”
In the midst of his oration a small wiry man stepped unobtrusively into
the stable. Hugh deserted Budd to greet his partner.
Byers, always taciturn, broke a record and made a long speech. He said,
“Glad to see you.”